We have been eating expensive, bland resort food and I have been questionIng whether I am really a foodie. Eating just seems boring here.
But tonight my foodieness was revived by delicious Mexican street food.
The only good thing that came out of the sales pitch on Monday was the suggestion of a street in Playa del carmen that had good, local food. We found this little open air restaurant that had just sopes and quesadillas. Frankly, I'm not sure what the difference is.
It was a simple set up with a griddle in the corner where several women were making tortillas by hand. There were plastic bins with different fillings. All the ingredients were written in Spanish, so John and I asked for a couple we knew like chorizo and poblano. But after we devoured those, we noticed another sign that had the ingredients in English also. Once we saw the choices we had to try the squash blossom and the braised pork cracklings.
Usually I'm a meat lover, but the poblanos and squash blossoms were so good. They were bursting with flavor and perfectly spiced. The resort food was politically correct, but really dull and absent of ownership.
The older woman making the sopes was clearly the owner. We were unlikely guests in this establishment. None of the employees spoke English, and communication was primarily made by references to the receipt. She would bring the receipt over and refer to it then point to the dish. She gave me this box of clotted cream and said, "crema" and gestured what I was supposed to do with it. The second time around she just put it on for me. We ate one round of sopes and, like good Americans, ate another round. John and I agreed that it was the best food we had since we arrived, and it cost us in total less than five bucks!
As we were leaving, I hugged the little Mayan woman (they're all little) and said " mucho, mucho, mucho gracias". In her best English she responded, "Good morning" and we walked off into the night.
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